February 28, 2010

Bought the Home Server yesterday, and I did the first mod today (really speechless about my pairs of itchy hands…). Anyway, I noticed that the system runs quite hot. With the stock 120mm fan running at 900+rpm, CPU idle at 60c+, while System temp is at around 50c+ (non air-cond room).

The stock fan (from AVC, Taiwan) was attached to a pair of nice metal bracket with rubber type feet, to reduce vibration I suppose, although you can hardly feel any when it’s only spinning below 1k rpm. Anyway, the fan was sitting more towards the top side to blow directly on the 4 HDD bays. It’d be better if it can blow those heatsinks on the mobo too.

I replaced the stock 120mm with a Cooler Master 140mm unit. The 140mm wouldn’t fit on the bracket. So forget about mounting it onto the bracket, I used cable tie to hold it, slightly tilted so that it can blow on the heatsinks too. Fan speed is around 1050rpm. The result, everything is cooler inside this small casing now. CPU is max at 52c under 80% usage, while System is staying at 40c. The screen shot below was taken when the server was idling.

In conclusion:

Before

After

CPU Temp

Idle

60c+

48c+

Load

70c+

52c+

System Temp

Idle

50c+

38c+

Load

60c+

40c+

It’s quite a good improvement consider the fan cost only RM29.

Next mod: larger heatsink, if I can find a suitable one in the local market, or perhaps a larger PC casing.

* Note: My Q6600 @ 3.3GHz / 1.424V is idle at around 36c under a CM V8. So…gonna try to reduce another 12c on the server…

After a long searched and countless time of frustration to get this Windows Home Server, I finally have it! From LHS (Karamunsing), at RM1299 (around USD382). The shop owner was quite surprise to see there is actually someone who’s interested in this product. According to him, Acer asked him if he would like to sell such product, so he tried it out by ordered 1 unit…and it’s quite a coincidence that I dropped by his shop after he had it on the shelves for few days.

Anyway, if you’d like to know the spec:

Intel Atom 230 processor (1.6GHz / 512K Cache / 533MHz HSB)

Intel 945GC Express Chipset

Gigabit Ethernet

2GB DDR2 Memory

256MB flash ROM

1TB 7200RPM HDD

Genuine Windows Home Server OS

So, does it worth the money? What if you DIY (estimated cost):

RM200 – Intel Atom & the mobo

RM130 – 2GB RAM

RM300 – 1TB HDD

RM340 – WHS OS

RM100 – for the small and pretty casing

RM240 – for the 4 hot swap HDD bays

That will add up to RM1310. Won’t differ much if you DIY one unit. Unless you are planning to run FreeNas, then you can save that OS cost for another 1TB of HDD. Anyway, the unit comes without keyboard/mouse and video out port. So just plug in the power cord, connect the RJ45 to your Switch or Router, everything else is setup through the neat GUI web interface from network client PC.

Things suppose to work out flawlessly (at least it was when I was setting up the 120-day trial last time), but sometimes we just have to expect the unexpected. I am not sure if the retailer’s staffs have been messing with the machine (although the shop owner did tell me it’s not yet configured), or is it Acer people who tried it out before they pushed it to their dealer. The unit is pre-configured, with a password…when the password is only suppose to be created by the user when he runs it for the 1st time after he bought it (it’s like when you take home a branded PC fresh out from the box, everything suppose to be fresh, no password, no user name and stuff).

Luckily, whoever that fellow was, he set the password at the “Password Hint” too. So that makes things went smooth for a short moment, before I encountered another problem – unable to detect Windows Home Server. Reset server and software reinstallation didn’t help either. Crap!

After few times try and error, noticed that it’s due to this Acer H340 messed up with my D-Link NAS. It’s using my NAS IP. So, reconfigured both units IP and things finally worked out good. Reset password, download and run those updates, and now it’s backing up my home office PCs...

February 1, 2010

Time flies, and my WHS trial copy expired. During the past 120 days, I have been looking here and there trying to get an original copy of the program (or even together with the PC if I have to). However, no luck for us Malaysian. I emailed my enquiry to Microsoft USA, telling them about the case, hoping that they might be able to help me out but the representative redirect me to Microsoft Malaysia…WTF, can’t they read the damn mail properly?

Since hp is one of the Microsoft’s partners on this product, I contacted a friend who works in a hp retail outlet, who also has a few contacts working in Microsoft Malaysia. So she got an answer for me. Her friend introduced Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition, which costs RM2k+…DUH!!

Someone said that it possible to buy from Amazon and activate it from Malaysia. But looks like Amazon now doesn’t ship it out from the USA.

So, 3 choices:

1) Forget about the whole damn WHS thing;

2) Buy or download a pirate copy;

3) Use the trial version, the follow the AntiWPA group and see what crack they have.

I believe Microsoft is trying their best on anti piracy, but what is freakin’ wrong with selling WHS in Malaysia? If I still can’t get an original copy, then “Jack Sparrow” will be my only friend…